Abbott pushes for poll in budget reply speech

Tony Abbott's speech was more of a campaign pitch than an economic plan.

Alan Porritt: AAP

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has rejected the Government's claims that his budget reply was a failure because he did not outline a plan to return to surplus.

In a reply largely devoid of new policies, the Opposition Leader used his speech to set out his case for an early election by sharpening his attack on the carbon tax in what he cast as an alternative vision for the nation.

But the Government says he failed to make a single tough decision and did not even say when he could return the budget to surplus.

Mr Abbott this morning said it was important to expose the Government's failures.

"I challenge people to read the funereal dirge from Wayne Swan and to read my budget reply and make a judgment about who has a vision for Australia," he said.

"That's what was on display last night, an alternative vision for Australia."

His speech was more of a campaign pitch than an economic plan.

"Tonight I want to reach out to Australian families, to small businesspeople, police, nurses, firefighters, teachers, shop assistants, workers in our steel mills and mines, the people who are the backbone of our society and our economy," he said.

"I do not think you are rich. I know you are struggling under a rising cost of living."

Among the only new details, he proposed more help for businesses, pledging to reduce the burden of red tape costs by $1 billion a year.

But Mr Abbott is refusing to be rushed into responding to the Government's budget, saying the Opposition will decide its position as each bill comes before Parliament.

He could not resist a dig at the plan to give pensioners free set-top boxes.

"Perhaps this program should be called 'building the entertainment revolution'," he said.

But as it has been all year, Mr Abbott's main focus was the Government's proposed carbon tax.

"This is the cancer that's eroding the Prime Minister's standing and sapping this Government's authority," he said.

"If Australia goes on like this for another two-and-a-half years, what is currently a great country with a lousy Government could slide into a complete morass of indecision and paralysis."

He says the Government should finalise the details of the tax and take it to an election.

"Only an election could make an honest politician of this Prime Minister," he said.

"Only an election can give Australia a government with authority to make the tough decisions needed to build a stronger country and to help Australians get ahead."

Nationals Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce says the Government's budget was "like a town drunk with a new pair of socks".

He agreed with Mr Abbott that people want an early election.

"People are just saying, 'I did not vote for a carbon tax and, mate, you cannot cool the planet from a room in Parliament House'."

He said the Government had asked the Opposition to release an alternative budget last night.

"This is what they keep asking us. What would you do if you were us?

"Well, if we were as stupid as you, well, I suppose we would drown ourselves. We don't have to propose an alternative to their stuff-up. We just have to get rid of them."

Frustrated

The Government is predicably frustrated that Mr Abbott ignored its insistence to outline specific savings.

"Tony Abbott had one job tonight - to balance the books - and he couldn't do it," she said.

"This is budget week. This is the week where we in the Government after months of work on the budget laid out our economic plan for the nation - how we bring the budget back to surplus, how we deal with the impacts of the natural disasters on our economy, the overhang of the global financial crisis and most importantly, make the decisions to bring the budget back to surplus.

"Where was Mr Abbott? Where was Tony Abbott when it comes to that task?"

Senator Wong admitted the Government went to last year's election without a carbon tax in its climate change policy, but she said it would not go to an election to secure a mandate for the tax.

"This is the Parliament people voted for," she said.

Greens Leader Bob Brown too was not impressed with Mr Abbott's speech, but he used his own reply to the Senate to criticise the budget's proposed welfare changes for single parents and teenage mothers.